


Meet Me at the Murder Mine

by AVegetarianCannibal



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, First Meetings, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, Meet-Cute, Murder, vague violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 07:12:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6319699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can dispose of a dead body, but you can't dispose of your feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meet Me at the Murder Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mokuyoubi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mokuyoubi/gifts).



> For @mokuyoubi, who requested a murder meet-cute when she was one of the recipients of my 500+ Tumblr Follower Give-Away. Thank you, dear, for your lovely idea! It was SO FUN to write.

Not far from Roanoke there is an old, abandoned iron ore mine. It is mostly overgrown with scraggly Virginia pine, pale green ferns and creeper vines that grow so fast a man would be wise not to stand still for too long lest he be overtaken. On cloudy nights and on nights of the new moon, it would be treacherously easy to become lost and tumble down into one of the old furnaces to one’s death, never to be seen again.

It was on a night like this that Hannibal Lecter found himself carrying an unconscious Jim Reed to the top of one of those furnaces. He paused just long enough to twist Mr. Reed’s neck until it was satisfactorily broken, and then he tipped him over the rusted, gaping edge to the littered floor far below. As he wiped his hands clean over a job well done, he turned toward a rustling coming from the side of the woods just across from him.

A few moments later, a young man emerged from the trees, shouldering the unmistakable bulk of a human body wrapped in plastic sheeting. He huffed and struggled under his burden, clearly smaller than his unwitting passenger.

“Hello, there,” Hannibal called out.

The young man froze, eyes visibly frightened even in the dim light afforded by the stars overhead.

“Do you need a hand?” Hannibal asked.

The young man merely gaped back at him, mouth working wordlessly, so Hannibal approached and slid the body off his shoulders and onto his own. Now that he was closer, he could see that the man wasn’t quite as young as he’d first guessed, although there was something almost startlingly boyish about his flushed pink lips and wild blue eyes.

“I presume this is where you were taking…this?” Hannibal asked, bringing the corpse to the edge of the old furnace. He untied the sheet and introduced him to Mr. Reed. A soft, dusty thud announced their meeting.

“Uh… thank you,” the (youngish) man said. “He was a little bigger than I realized when I…um…”

“When you killed him?” Hannibal offered helpfully. He extended a hand, which the man took as if by reflex. “I’m Hannibal. And you are…?”

“My name is Will,” he said, then winced. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that.”

Hannibal gave a soft laugh. “Because now you’ll have to kill me?” he guessed. “Nothing would be gained from that, I just want you to know.”

Will frowned at him, just now catching is breath from the prior exertion. “Does that mean you’re going to kill _me_?”

“I don’t think anything would be gained from that, either,” Hannibal said, “but why don’t we have a chat and decide if we should each let the other go on living for another night?”

***********

They sat next to each other on an overturned ore cart, an act which Will found strangely comfortable and downright companionable, considering the circumstances. This guy Hannibal, he was pretty well-dressed for someone out disposing of a body in the woods. And he’d just admitted to that murder bit without any hesitation at all, which Will _also_ found a bit strange and companionable.

“If I may offer some advice,” Hannibal began. “It’s best to wait to kill them until you’re here. In the event someone finds them, it looks like an accident.”

“Shit,” Will breathed. “You’d think I would know that. It’s kind of my job.”

Hannibal looked at him, pale brows raised.

“I probably shouldn’t have told you that, either,” Will said. “This was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing for me, though. I didn’t really plan it.”

“A crime of passion,” Hannibal said. “Did you find your victim with your wife?”

“Oh, I’m not married,” Will rushed to say. “No girlfriend, either." He cast about in his mind for a reason why he’d volunteered that extra bit of information, and decided he didn’t want to peer too closely at it.

Hannibal smiled at him in a way that Will knew he should have found especially treacherous, but he just felt… glad. Really glad. He normally didn’t even like to look people in the eye, but he found it hard to look away in this instance. He had to force himself to stare down at his own hands.

"He runs–or _ran,_ I guess–a puppy mill,” Will said. “He paid off anybody who came to investigate, not that many came to investigate. ‘Here, have a free Lhasa Apso and shut up!’ A hundred or more dogs, living in filth, never knowing a kind touch. I went to just talk to him but I snapped.”

“Good for you,” Hannibal said. “I have no taste for animal cruelty, myself.”

“So, why’d your guy end up here?” Will asked.

“He is–or _was_ –an enemy of the arts,” Hannibal said.

Will listened as Hannibal explained how Jim Reed was responsible–or would have been responsible–for slashing the budget for the arts and music programs of Baltimore’s public schools. It hadn’t been a crime of passion, but a cool-headed plan, carefully put into motion on a night that was both moonless AND when Reed was scheduled to meet with his mistress.

“You’re not going to off the mistress, are you?” Will asked.

“Oh, no, no,” Hannibal was quick to say. “She’ll be the one to report him missing, and then there’ll be a small scandal, and all his dirty misdeeds will tumble out like rubbish from an overflowing bin. Any number of people could have killed him.”

Will couldn’t help but let out a low, impressed whistle. “You’re really good at this. Do you…” He stopped himself before he could ask _do you come here often?_ It sounded like a cheesy pickup like, for fuck’s sake! Instead, he edited himself to say, “…usually get rid of evidence here?”

“The area offers a lot of hiding places,” Hannibal said. “I haven’t run out yet.”

Will happened to glance at his watch and immediately regretted it, because it meant this odd companionship was coming to an end. “I need to get home,” he said. “My dogs haven’t been out in 12 hours now.”

Hannibal stood first, offering a hand and then pulling Will to his feet when it was taken. They held onto each other longer than was strictly necessary, but it seemed neither wanted to let go.

“I suppose we’ve decided not to kill one another,” Hannibal said.

“I suppose so,” Will said, grinning at him and not even trying to hide it.

********************

Hannibal was at odds with himself as he drove home that night. Part of him felt unsettled at declining to kill this Will fellow. The kind of man who murders someone for mistreating puppies might find himself riddled with enough guilt to confess to his own crime, as well as that of the stranger he’d met at the old mine. It would have been more prudent to add Will to the heap at the bottom of the furnace. And yet, Hannibal realized, another part of him was mad for letting Will get away without exchanging phone numbers, as if they’d met at a singles bar.

He put Will out of his mind and decided to think no more on him.

*************

Will was feeding his dogs the next morning when he succumbed to a sudden fit of laughter. He should have been terrified. He should have been worried at getting caught. He should have been in knots over taking a human life. Instead, he was missing Hannibal. He missed someone he’d only just met–someone who, by his own admission, was a practiced murderer!

“He was so calm and understanding,” Will said to nobody in particular. Winston, the newest addition to the pack, nosed his hand. “He was really handsome, too. Like, weirdly so.”

Will sighed. It would be better not to think on his chance encounter anymore. He decided to focus on finding new homes for the puppy mill dogs.

****************

On the night of the next new moon, Hannibal was making his way toward the old mine with Peter Fleck when something caught his attention. He lifted his nose into the wind and caught the scent of a very strong, very cheap aftershave. “That isn’t you, is it?” he asked Peter, who struggled in vain over his shoulder. Hannibal sniffed again. “No, I would have noticed it sooner if it had been you.”

He dropped Mr. Fleck to the ground and moved toward the source of the odor. It grew more piercing as he moved east. By the time he reached the mine’s outermost air shaft, he was nearly engulfed in a stinking cloud of the cologne.

Will popped out from behind a clump of trees, grinning and waving. “Oh, hello again!”

Hannibal smiled despite himself. “You shouldn’t wear so much aftershave,” he said. “Your sillage made it too easy to track you.”

Will’s grin faltered. “I…just… wanted to smell nice.”

“For me?” Hannibal asked, trying to keep the note of hope out of his voice.

“In general,” Will said with a shrug.

Now Hannibal had to keep his disappointment from showing. He was well practiced in controlling his reactions, but he was finding it a bit more of a challenge than usual. He put on a pleasant smile and asked, “Could I persuade you to give me a hand with my guest for the evening?”

*****************

Will had to force himself NOT to skip across the woods to meet Hannibal. What the fuck was wrong with him that he was so ridiculously happy to see this guy again? He could feel his dumb grin creeping back into place even after Hannibal had commented on his cologne faux pas. Jesus, that was embarrassing. What had he been thinking? “Trying to smell nice”? Jesus! Why not just hand the guy a promise ring and be done with it?

They came upon Hannibal’s “guest,” who was bound and gagged on the ground, wearing only an undershirt and grimy underpants that were getting grimier by the second.

“Another enemy of the arts?” Will asked.

“Mr. Fleck was running a dog fighting operation,” Hannibal explained.

Will gaped at him. “Fleck? _Peter_ Fleck?”

“You know him?” Hannibal asked.

Will laughed. “I’ve been trying to get someone on him for almost two years! Slippery bastard kept moving his dogs around!”

Before he could stop himself, Will flung his arms around Hannibal and pulled him into an embrace. He didn’t even realize what he’d done until he felt Hannibal tense up very slightly against him.

“Sorry about that,” he said, pulling back. His face felt like it was on fire and he couldn’t bring himself to look at Hannibal’s eyes. “I–I’m just so thankful. I mean, not that you did this for me, or anything. I’m just saying. I’m just… glad.”

“No need for apologies,” Hannibal said, clearing his throat. “Your enthusiasm merely caught me off-guard. Shall we?”

Hannibal gestured down at Fleck.

Together, they picked him up and took him to the air shaft. Hannibal snapped his neck with cool efficiency before dumping him over the edge to his final resting place.

“Looks like you brought a guest, too,” Hannibal noted, peering down the air  shaft. “Another puppy mill case?”

“He was harassing a homeless vet,” Will said. “I saw him kick the guy, steal from him. Three days in a row. I thought about calling the cops…”

“But you wanted to take care of it yourself?” Hannibal guessed.

“It’s just so much quicker,” Will said with a sigh, so relieved that Hannibal seemed to understand him.

“And there’s something satisfying about a job well done,” Hannibal said.

“Exactly,” Will agreed.

************

Things carried on this way, the two of them meeting “by chance” once a month, for the next few months. Hannibal started bringing coffee; Will brought rich, buttery croissants he’d made himself. They would help each other finish off their “guests” and then spend the rest of the night talking, sometimes until dawn threatened to expose them. With a couple of tips from Hannibal, Will had been able to clean up the rest of Fleck’s dog-fighting operation, and so tidily that local law enforcement were positively stumped for a suspect. Hannibal, for his part, mostly went back to championing the arts in his own way. Baltimore’s public schools suddenly found themselves with the best-funded arts program it had had in decades.

On the night of the new moon in November, Hannibal was pleasantly surprised to find that Will had broken with tradition and brought a thermos of piping-hot gumbo. “That smells divine,” Hannibal said, closing his eyes to focus on the aromas of the briny seafood and pungent spices.

“After we talked about New Orleans last time, I was inspired,” Will said. He produced a tin of pepper-flecked cheese straws. “Made them this morning. Careful–I went a little heavier on the cayenne than I meant to.”

Hannibal poured them both cups of coffee. “I was inspired, as well,” he said, holding one of the cups for Will. “Anything familiar?”

Will closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath of the fragrant steam. “Ah, chicory!”

“Roasted it myself,” Hannibal said.

The hot food and drink warmed them so thoroughly that the autumn chill barely touched them. They discussed everything and nothing at all. Hannibal was just as pleased to hear of Will’s favorite hobbies (fly fishing, collecting stray dogs) as he had been to hear of the precise methods of Will’s past murders. The story of Buster the terrier’s sock-stealing shenanigans held him just as rapt as the story of Will crushing a man’s windpipe beneath his hands. Hannibal realized he would have happily listened to Will discussing his favorite brand of toothpaste.

“You’re staring at me,” Will said, smiling down at his empty cup.

“Am I?”

“Have been for some time, if I’m not wrong.”

“I was wondering what you might look like in the sunlight,” Hannibal said. He reached out and tucked a strand of curly hair behind Will’s delightfully prominent ear. 

“You might get your chance if we don’t leave soon,” Will said, with a nod to the east. “It’ll be dawn in minutes, if we let it.”

“I say we let it,” Hannibal said.

Will caught his hand and met his gaze. He started to say something–perhaps an excuse–but instead fell into laughter. He laughed so long and so hard, he had to cover his mouth to keep quiet.

“I don’t understand,” Hannibal said.

“I just realized I forgot to bring a ‘guest,’” Will said. “I was so focused on impressing you with my gumbo and cheese straws that I forgot to kill somebody.”

The admission made Hannibal realize he’d done the same. “I’m afraid I came unescorted, as well,” he said. “Roasting that chicory took all my powers of concentration.”

“Then there’s no reason we shouldn’t be here when the sun comes up,” Will said. 

“After all, we have nothing to hide,” Hannibal said.

Will tilted his head up for their first kiss, and Hannibal obliged. Happily. His lips tasted of the cayenne and coffee of their shared meal, soft and warm despite the chill in the air. Hannibal gasped when Will moaned sweetly into his mouth. He thought his knees might give out, but Will’s hand slid up his back, holding them tightly together.

When they parted, the silvery rays of light were just reaching them through the trees, on this, the first morning of many more to come, Hannibal hoped.

“Nothing to hide,” Will agreed, and moved in for another kiss.


End file.
